Phil Rosenthal

ColumnistChicago TribuneWriter

There are many Phil Rosenthals. This one has been a Chicago Tribune columnist since 2005. A working journalist since age 17, he is a University of Wisconsin at Madison grad. He’s certain few people read bios, so never mind the honors he won as a sports writer, TV critic and then features columnist at the Los Angeles Daily News and how he came home in 1996, serving as a Chicago Sun-Times sports columnist then its TV critic. Ditto for his work in TV, radio and pizza. But that time he modeled swimsuits for Sports Illustrated cover model Vendela is actually a decent story.

Recent Articles

This time the Olympics TV analyst in hot water works for Australia's Channel Seven, not NBC. Jacqui Cooper, a five-time Olympian in freestyle skiing, was critiquing an aerial maneuver by China's Yan Ting when she inadvertently echoed an old bit of racism. “Double-twisting double somersault, not...

Mikaela Shiffrin threw up breakfast. Nathan Chen threw away his best chance for gold. And just like that, NBC had to throw out its Olympics script. What had been advertised as a medal march for U.S. Olympians Shiffrin and Chen became something else altogether on NBC’s broadcast and cable telecasts...

And you thought the worst thing about Bode Miller’s NBC Olympics skiing analysis was his dull, flat delivery and too-technical insights? Miller livened things up Wednesday, agreeing with colleague Dan Hicks that Austrian Anna Veith’s knee injuries were “certainly an issue” in the former World Cup...

Baseball is coming back to WGN-AM 720, named the new radio flagship of the White Sox on Wednesday. “Get ready, kids, the sweet sounds of the ballyard return to 720 on Friday, February 23rd, live from Arizona,” Todd Manley, WGN-AM’s station manager and vice president of content, wrote in a memo...

Shaun White wrapped himself in the American flag. Yuto Totsuka was wrapped in a blanket. For all the compelling stories and angles there may have been — on or off the mountain, in the present or the past, heroic or inappropriate — this is what NBC’s prime-time Olympics coverage Tuesday left us...

Chloe Kim’s gravity-defying acrobatics en route to gold in the women’s halfpipe was something to behold. The highly touted 17-year-old snowboarder from California soared and spun while carrying both the weight of lofty expectations and NBC’s Monday prime-time telecast on her back at the Pyeongchang...

If America grows weary of skier Mikaela Shiffrin before she even hits the slopes, it’s not her fault. Shiffrin’s bid not just to repeat as a gold medalist but to compete in as many as five individual Alpine events, with an eye on winning three or more, has been one of NBC’s favorite storylines...

The Winter Olympics are under way in Pyeongchang, South Korea. We have seen plenty of good and just enough bad. Let's review. Winners: Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski Yes, they can be annoying. Yes, they're fame hounds. And, yes, Weir’s style channels Caesar Flickerman from “The Hunger Games.” But...